I am going through a Personal Improvement stage, and am reading - wait for it - The Idiot, by Fyodor Dostoeyvsky. That bit of high-class literary name-dropping was to show you that a) I don't just spend hours on the internet looking for pictures of Jordan in her wedding dress (couldn't find any) b) to impress you with how clever and intellectual I am and c) to genuinely try and stop my brain from rotting away, especially as I read the other week that the brain is an organ also in need of regular exercise, and even my daily Sudoku habit has been on the wane of late.

Now can the bookish, boffiny types out there please explain to me what's going on? (In the book.) There is a lot of sitting around in aristocratic salons. There is a lot of arguing. There is some bad behaviour: drunkenness from the men, bustle-rustling hissy fits from the women. There are very long, Russian names. (Ivan Nastypersonalitch. OK, I made that up.) Some people have consumption. But I am struggling to 'get it', and don't feel very personally improved. Should I give up?